Wall plates are a common fixture in most homes and businesses for covering connections to electrical outlets mounted on walls. The connections are made within electrical boxes that are anchored to supports within the walls. Open ends of the boxes are accessible through holes formed in the walls for making the connections to the electrical outlets. The wall plates are mounted on the outlets and cover both the electrical boxes and the access holes that are formed in the walls. One or more openings are formed in the plates to permit receptacles of the electrical outlets to project into front faces of the plates for receiving electrical plugs.
Most of the wall plates are either stamped out of sheet metal or molded from a resin material. Except for so-called "designer" wall plates, which may also be made of wood or ceramic, most wall plates are available in standard sizes and shapes. The most common wall plates are sized to accommodate electrical outlets with duplex receptacles. Similarly sized wall plates are also used to cover connections to a variety of other electrical fixtures including wall switches and communication outlets.
For example, similarly sized wall plates are used for mounting modular telephone jacks and coaxial video cable terminals. Although the plates are the same size which is used to cover the standard electrical boxes, the telephone and video connections are often made without a box. The telephone jacks and video terminals are mounted directly on the wall plates, and the wall plates are attached to wall surfaces with screws or brackets.
Wall plates mounting telephone and video communication outlets are generally located on wall surfaces independently of each other and independently of the locations of the electrical outlets. Separate wires are threaded through walls to predetermined locations at which telephone or video service is desired. However, in new construction, it is often difficult to predict the locations at which the various services may be needed. Also, there appears to be an increasing demand for telephone and video outlets in more rooms and in more than one location within each room. The large number of wall plates required to provide the desired services tends to detract from the appearance of walls which become cluttered with wall plates. Construction is also complicated by the large number of different mounting locations for the different services; and as a result, the availability of the services in desired locations is often curtailed for reasons of expense or appearance.
Recently, communication and energy control systems have become available that link together different services distributed throughout the houses. One known system, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,217 to MacFadyen et al., includes an appliance coordination data network, an energy distribution network, analog and digital data communications networks, and a video services distribution network. The various networks share common outlets which are positioned throughout a house. However, in most new homes, the new systems are expected to be prohibitively expensive. Although a single composite cable may be used for transmitting electrical power and telephone, data, and video signals, the outlets include nonstandard receptacles requiring special plugs that are not available for most appliances. In addition, most appliances are not designed with communication capabilities which would enable them to benefit from the network interface available at each outlet.
A more longstanding problem also exists with respect to making coaxial video cable connections at conventional wall plates. Although it is preferable to tighten cable connections together with a wrench, the connections are often made without a wrench because of the inconvenience of finding the correct size wrench. Other times, it is difficult to fit a conventional wrench within a limited space surrounding the cable terminal. As a result, many video connections are not properly made and the quality of video service is diminished.